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Sunday, December 8, 2013

Patent Regime and the abuses : Challenging times for creativity!

I am writing this post out of sheer fun and amazement at the coincidence of ideas and real life. Early morning today, before having my first cup of tea, I ventured to write the below blog post in Fizzog about the need for a systematic inclusion of societal thinking in the invention publishing process and Intellectual Property (IP) law. Though not on the exact lines, I could see an Economist article on the patent reform in America. This new law is mainly related to the patents pertaining to abstract inventories.

The new Innovation law drafted by US policy makers aspire to achieve the below as per the mentioned article:

By shifting the costs of litigation on to the loser and forcing patent holder to disclose what the infringement is, the Innovation Act hopes to change this. There is probably no perfect equilibrium that protects inventors without stifling new inventions. At the moment the scales are weighted in one direction. The new act would add some balance.

This is just a scraping on the surface of the issues. The patent filing and publishing system has been maligned not only by legal issues, but by the undue greed and haste to overtake the competitor or to sabotage a fair competition. It may be a better idea to involve the competing parties to the discussion table before awarding the patent. It may be also a good idea to think of shared patents when there is a substantial overlap in the areas of application and the invention inventories.